Cardinals advance to World Series with 9-0 win

October 18, 2013|By Bill Shaikin, Tribune Newspapers

The Cardinals' Carlos Beltran rounds the bases after his RBI double drove home Matt Carpenter in the third inning. (David Carson / MCT)

ST. LOUIS -- Clayton Kershaw should win the National League Cy Young award in a landslide. He led the major leagues in earned-run average for the third consecutive year, the first pitcher to do so since Greg Maddux.

The Cardinals faced Kershaw four times this season. They beat him every time.

The sweetest victory of all was the one on Friday. They toasted their victory with champagne, and they sprayed bottles upon bottles of the stuff upon one another.

For the second time in three years, the Cardinals are bound for the World Series. The Cardinals routed the Dodgers 9-0 to win the NL championship series in six games. They will open the World Series on Wednesday, against either the Red Sox or Tigers.

The Cardinals dismissed Kershaw after four innings, his shortest start in 2010. They batted around against him in the third inning, the first time a team had done that since 2009, his first full season in the major leagues.

The Cardinals had scored 12 runs against the Dodgers in the previous five games. So where did all the runs Friday come from?

The story was pitching, on both sides. St. Louis rookie Michael Wacha -- in college last spring, then drafted with a compensation pick awarded when Albert Pujols signed with the Angels -- stopped the Dodgers on two hits over seven scoreless innings.

“He stepped up in a huge way for us,” Cardinals second baseman Matt Carpenter said of Wacha, a 22-year-old right-hander. “He’s a warrior, he’s a bulldog. He goes out there and just competes. To do that at such a young age is impressive.”

Wacha, who was selected NLCS most valuable player, went 2-0 in the series. He beat Kershaw both times, pitching a total of 13 2/3 innings without giving up a run. He gave up seven hits and two walks, and he struck out 13.

The Dodgers scored 13 runs in the six games, six of them in one game. After scoring two runs in the third inning of Game 1, they were shutout for 28 consecutive innings in games at St. Louis.

"They are a tremendous club and they will be a great representative for the National League in the World Series,” Dodgers manager Don Mattingly said of the Cardinals.

Kershaw lost twice to the Cardinals in the regular season, then gave up two hits in Game 2 of the NLCS and lost again.

On Friday, the Cardinals did not just beat him. They beat up on him.

In the third inning, with one out, Carpenter doubled on the final pitch of an 11-pitch at-bat.

Carlos Beltran singled Carpenter home, and right fielder Yasiel Puig unwisely threw home, allowing Beltran to take second. After Matt Holliday struck out, the next five batters reached base. Yadier Molina singled home one run, Shane Robinson singled home two more, and the Cardinals led, 4-0.

“He got ahead of me early,” Carpenter said of his game-changing at-bat. “I just kept trying to foul pitches off and he just kept going after me. I was able to get the count back to even and got a slider I could handle and was able to hit that double.

“You have to give our guys a lot of credit. We kept pushing and grinding out at-bats and that was the difference in the game.”

In Game 2, Kershaw made 72 pitches in six innings. On Friday, he made 81 pitches through the first three innings. In all, he gave up seven runs and 10 hits in four-plus innings.

Kershaw threw two wild pitches. Puig made two errors.

But the night belonged to the Cardinals, who got to celebrate in front of their fans. The Cardinals blew a 3-1 lead to the San Francisco Giants, and the Cardinals were reminded of it repeatedly over the past couple days. They had lost Game 5. They would face Kershaw in Game 6. Then, if they lost, it would be a one-game series against the Dodgers, and against the ghosts of 2012.

Kershaw was gone halfway through the game. The ghosts were officially slain soon after.